


we are fucking off to Fortille to be olive-growers

by bissonomy (Macdicilla)



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Faked Death, Gen, Much-Deserved Retirement, kind of implied Drumknott/Vetinari, your city now! byeeee!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-31 00:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17839037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Macdicilla/pseuds/bissonomy
Summary: It had never occurred to him, Moist reflected as he changed his suit, that the man would actually die. He was something permanent, a fixed point, never changing. Moist would have compared him to the sun or moon, but they moved about too much to work in his analogy. He’d often thought that he’d die before Vetinari, and sometimes, if he was being uncharitable, he’d thought that he’d die because of Vetinari. It seemed that was no longer a risk to be concerned about. He missed the feeling immensely. Send a prodding Dark Clerk to summon a man from his own home often enough, and he’d get nostalgic for it. Moist could almost feel a hand tapping at his back just remembering it.He frowned. It didn’t feel like a memory.“Mr. von Lipwig,” said a female voice, patiently, “please follow me to the palace.”





	we are fucking off to Fortille to be olive-growers

The Patrician was dead. He had passed in his sleep. The news spread quickly over the city in hushed tones, and even more quickly over the clacks lines. It had first started spreading at dawn, and even before the sun covered the city, the news of the Patrician’s passing had covered it first.

It wasn’t unexpected. Lord Vetinari hadn’t been exactly young, and for the past year and a half, he hadn’t been exactly healthy either. Nonetheless, even the most expected losses hit hard. There was no rule that people should wear black upon his passing, but people did so anyway. Something about that felt narratively right. Adults and children of all species were clad in black. Even some trolls, who usually forewent clothing, had tied a black ribbon to themselves.

 

Moist didn’t usually wake anywhere near dawn. It was eight in the morning when he got up and stepped into his gold suit. Adora Belle wrinkled her nose at him when he came down to breakfast.

“You’d better change,” she said, putting down her coffee cup. “Haven’t you heard?”

“Heard?” he asked. “Heard what?”

 

With a flair for the dramatic, she picked up the open newspaper that lay on the table before her, and held it so that Moist could see the headline.

**_Patrician Lord Vetinari Dies, age nearly 70, of Pancreatic Cancer_ **

“Oh shit,” Moist said.

 

* * *

 

It had never occurred to him, Moist reflected as he changed his suit, that the man would actually die. He was something permanent, a fixed point, never changing. Moist would have compared him to the sun or moon, but they moved about too much to work in his analogy. He’d often thought that he’d die before Vetinari, and sometimes, if he was being uncharitable, he’d thought that he’d die _because of_ Vetinari. It seemed that was no longer a risk to be concerned about. He missed the feeling immensely. Send a prodding Dark Clerk to summon a man from his own home often enough, and he’d get _nostalgic_ for it. Moist could almost feel a hand tapping at his back just remembering it.

He frowned. It didn’t feel like a memory.

“Mr. von Lipwig,” said a female voice, patiently, “please follow me to the palace.”

 

Moist turned around so hard he nearly fell.

“Ah,” he said, recovering his composure, “Clerk Wiggs, isn’t it? How are you?”

“Better than you, sir,” she said. “Now, if you would, please follow me to the palace.”

“May I ask what’s going on?”

“You may,” Wiggs said, and didn’t elaborate.

“All right, then,” said Moist, “what _is_ going on?”

“I’m taking you to the palace,” she said, with a smile that Moist would have better expected to see on the face of a father of four who considered himself a funny man.

 

* * *

 

Adora Belle had already left for work, so they didn’t need to sneak past her. Wiggs and Moist took the long way around to the palace, avoiding main roads and preferring alleyways when possible. Wiggs seemed at first to be in a rush, but after a few minutes, Moist realized the woman simply had a faster walking speed than his. Besides, he was a bit distracted looking at the city. Mournful-looking wreaths covered a fourth of the front doors he saw. Businesses had turned off the lights on their signs in respect. (But of course, still remained open.) Everywhere, the flag of Ankh-Morpork flew at half-mast. Among the more extreme patriots, it flew at one-third-mast.

When they arrived near the palace, force of habit pointed Moist’s feet in the direction of the main steps, but Jocasta Wiggs sighed, yanked his wrist, and led him down an alleyway two blocks away from the palace. They entered what seemed to be an ordinary house, albeit an upscale one, but something about it felt off. There wasn’t any dust, but the angles of the furniture were too perfect.

Wiggs had made her way to the kitchen, but Moist stayed in the front room and mussed up some pillows to make it less glaringly obvious that no one lived there.

 

“Hey!” she called, “Don’t dawdle.”

She had rolled up a floor mat out of the way, and was tapping the blue and white geometric floor tiles in a particular pattern. Moist tried to memorize it, but she looked up and grinned.

“Kidding, sir,” Wiggs said. “I do have a key.”

 

How could Wiggs be so mirthful at a time like this? Moist wondered, but there was no time to ask. She plunged a hand into the recesses of her shirt, and pulled out something small and metal from an underarm pocket. It wasn’t flat like a key. The object had three sides. Moist watched as the Dark Clerk nimbly climbed into the cupboard under the sink and clicked the key into a false bolt in the plumbing. The floor of the under-sink cupboard started to descend. Moist crawled in after her.

 

The space under the empty house was a network of tunnels. It wasn’t lit at all, but Wiggs seemed to know her way around in the dark, so Moist just let her hold his wrist and hoped for the best.

The scene was slightly better lit and far more familiar when they reached the palace dungeons. Moist could hear the reassuring chittering and scuttling of rats and the far less pleasant mewling of kittens. But the iron maiden was open and empty and Cedric was nowhere to be seen, so that was a good sign.

Wiggs led him up two flights of stairs. They were in the palace proper, now, and Wiggs had released Moist’s wrist. He caught a quick glimpse of the Oblong Office as they passed it. The long oblong table that normally stood in the middle of it had been removed to make room for a catafalque, atop which was a simple pine casket. In it, spartan even in death, lay the cold body of the Patrician, clad in his usual plain black robes. Six tall candlesticks, arranged at the head of the casket, three on each side, held twinkling white candles. Moist felt like he should place a hand on his chest, say some words of respect, or shed a genuine tear, but Wiggs was jerking him by his wrist again and guiding him up yet another flight of stairs.

There was a dark little room in the palace that was not exactly above the Oblong Office. It was on the story above it, and it was placed in such a way that the ventilation grille on the bottom of the wall of the upper room was the same grille at the top of the wall above Vetinari’s desk. Unlike the Oblong Office, this room was a pinkish brown rather than green, and had thick wall-to wall carpeting. It was completely empty, and rather small. Moist and Wiggs were in that room now. Moist was on his knees, peering through the grille, looking at the Oblong Office again. The Patrician lay in state, in a rather peaceful state. The light from the window washed over his death-pale face, and since the bottom of the casket faced the wall where Moist was, Moist had a very good view of his face. It was expressionless, and would remain so forever. Vetinari really was gone.

 

Moist sighed. Someone else sighed behind him.

“Poor, poor Charlie,” said a familiar deep voice.

Moist got up to throttle him.

 

* * *

 

What happened next was a blur. Havelock Vetinari had not gotten this far in life by being an easy man to throttle, so Moist’s hands had simply never reached his throat. Moist’s hands were instead rubbing Moist’s shoulder, and he was trying not to cry out in pain. Getting a heavy cane-blow to the clavicle never felt good.

“Don’t try that again,” Lord Vetinari said sharply.

“Yes, sir,” said Moist, eyes watering.

“Thank you, Clerk Wiggs,” Vetinari said to Jocasta. “You may go.”

She gave him a little salute and flashed a mean smile at Moist before turning out of the room.

 

“I can’t believe you’ve done this,” said Moist. He looked back at the corpse, at Charlie’s corpse, the spitting image of Vetinari, lying on the bier in the Oblong Office.

“Oh gods,” whispered Moist, “did you kill him?”

“He died of pancreatic cancer, Mr. von Lipwig.”

Moist didn’t move.

Lord Vetinari sighed.

“I’m afraid you overestimate me,” he said. “I am not the kind of man who can give an old man pancreatic cancer. Nor indeed am I the kind of man who would. That would be selfish. But I _was_ pretending to suffer from the same ailment as poor Charlie, and I _was_ waiting for him to pass so I could pretend to pass. I had his permission, you know. He rather liked the idea of having a big state funeral.”

“Does his family know?” Moist asked.

Vetinari shook his head.

“He told them he’d be cremated. They’ve been given an urn of ashes.”

Moist gave him a look.

“Not anyone else’s ashes,” Vetinari explained, “just birchwood and animal bones from the Lady Sybil Free Hospital cafeteria. Mutton, I believe.”

This is insane, Moist thought.

“In fact,” continued Vetinari, “no one knows I am actually living except for my clerks, and you. Oh, and Lady Sybil is to be informed, but I don’t know if she’s gotten the news yet.”

Good, Moist thought, she bloody well should know. It wasn’t fair that the woman who had just had to mourn for her husband the year before should now have to mourn for her oldest friend. Then his thoughts circled back to something that had been bothering him.

“Hang on, though. Me? Why me?”

Vetinari steepled his fingers together.

“I’m going to retire, Moist. I’m not going to be Patrician anymore. I’m past my prime. It would be a disservice to continue to run the city if I start to decline.”

“But there’s so many people _at_ their prime who would give anything to have what you have at past your prime!” Moist protested.

“I’m flattered,” Vetinari said with a slight smile, “really. But I’m also tired. I’ve given my entire life to Ankh-Morpork and her wellbeing. I _love_ this city. I want her to flourish after I’m gone. Nothing would put my mind more at ease than _seeing_ her flourish with my guiding hand removed. Besides, I am pushing seventy now. To be quite frank, if it’s between us, I’ve pushed seventy so hard that I am already seventy-one. I want a bit of time for myself.”

“And what have I got to do with this?” asked Moist anxiously, though a sinking feeling in his stomach told him he already knew.

“You are to be my successor,” Vetinari said.

“Oh gods,” groaned Moist, “oh gods. I can’t be the Patrician.”

“Neither can I,” said Vetinari with a little shrug, “I’m dead, ostensibly.”

 

Moist’s knees felt shaky. He drew three deep breaths and sat down on the carpet with his back against the wall.

“The city is ready for the transfer of power, Mr. von Lipwig.”

“I’m not ready!”

Vetinari fixed him with his iciest gaze, and in that moment, Moist felt something akin to shame.

“You wound me deeply,” Vetinari said quietly. “What do you think I have been preparing you for all these years, since the beginning?”

“I thought you were just tormenting me, sir.” Moist said weakly.

The warmth crept back into Vetinari’s expression and he smiled wryly.

“Oh. Well, yes, I was doing that too.” 

A tiny part of Moist’s mind had begun to think: I could do it, couldn’t I? Be Patrician von Lipwig? The rest of his mind was screeching: None of this is really happening! Impossible! Moist’s mind clutched at straws, at anything he could think of to ground himself in reality.

“But this isn’t set in stone yet, is it?” he heard himself saying, “You couldn’t just appoint me as your successor. I have to be elected by the council. There has to be a conclave of guild heads and nobles. You can’t know for sure it’ll be me.”

“Then let us go over what I do know for sure,” Vetinari said. “I know that I have dropped hints that I considered you capable. I know that I have friends among the guild heads and nobles who would lovingly respect my last wishes, as well as non-friends who likewise would respect my last wishes, since they know what’s good for them. I find these groups will make up a solid majority in the conclave. I also know that there are no other likely candidates. No one else has your job experience. You _are_ ready, and moreover, you’ll do well. You’ve been Mr. Post Office, Mr. the Bank, Mr. Railway, and Mr. Tax Man. Why couldn’t you be Mr. Ankh-Morpork too? In short, the balance of probability points towards you becoming Patrician. Therefore I can be quite sure you’ll be my successor. I’ve accounted for everything.”

“What if I refuse the conclave's nomination?" Moist asked suddenly.

Vetinari blinked.

"I don't think you will."

That was the damned thing. He was right. It was a delightful challenge, possibly the best one Moist had ever faced. It made his blood rush and the bottom of his stomach drop just thinking about it.

"But if I do?"

"Then my labour of the past fifteen or so years will have been in vain, and I will be very let down."

The answer was honest and vulnerable and made Moist feel sick.

"Oh," said Moist. "But aren't you going to threaten me?"

"No," said Vetinari simply. He stood there, arms open, palms up.

"For old times' sake?"

"All right, then, if you insist. Pretend I've said something witty involving scorpions."

"Thank you," said Moist, feeling much better.

 

There was a patterned knock at the door, and Moist quickly got to his feet.

“Come in, Mr. Drumknott,” Vetinari called.

The man entered. Ah, Drumknott. Good old wonderful, excellent Mr. Drumknott. Moist had never been so happy to see Vetinari’s personal clerk before, nor indeed had he ever experienced any emotion at the prospect of seeing him. But here he was, his salvation.

“I suppose it won’t be so bad,” Moist said. “I won’t be alone. Some of your staff will remain on.”

Vetinari made a non-commital noise.

“Have you two been talking in the dark, my lord?” Drumknott asked. “Mind if I turn on the lights?”

“Feel free.”

 

Drumknott turned the gas lamps on and Moist winced slightly. It wasn’t due to the sudden brightness that he winced, but due to the clothes the other men were wearing. Vetinari had traded his usual black robes for a long navy blue coat. On any other person, the colour would have looked rather sober, but on Vetinari, it looked disgustingly festive. And Drumknott was wearing...oh, gods. Drumknott, who only ever wore the most boring suits in brown, grey, and, if he was feeling particularly risqué, dun, was wearing a floral-patterned short-sleeved button-up  shirt. He was also carrying a pair of brown leather suitcases.

It was a disguise. It had to be. For Vetinari, it made sense. Perhaps he would even shave his beard off, though Moist had significant trouble imagining what the Patrician’s–the ex-Patrician’s, Moist corrected himself–face would look like clean-shaven. But Drumknott in disguise?  

 

“Mr. Drumknott,” begged Moist, “You’re staying on to help me learn to be Patrician, right?”

“Is that so?” asked Drumknott drily. “That’s the first I’m hearing of it.”

“But–but–but _you_ didn’t fake your death!”

“No,” Drumknott said casually, “I suppose not. Would you mind telling people I jumped in the river?”

“No one would believe that!” Moist snapped. “You can’t jump in the river, you can only jump _onto_ it!”

“Then make up some other method of suicide, Mr. von Lipwig. Show a little resourcefulness.”

 

Moist stared at him. Drumknott was impassive. Suicide? Him?

“Tell them I was too sad, sir,” Drumknott said by way of explanation.

“Is that plausible?” Moist asked faintly.

Drumknott shrugged.

“Many men made of sterner stuff have been known to go mad with grief over the deaths of their wives. His lordship and I have known each other for a long time, rivalling some marriages.”

Vetinari looked vaguely amused. Moist nodded, pretending to understand.

 

Then Moist understood something else, and his heart sank. He looked at their disguises, he looked at their suitcases, and he looked back down at poor Charlie on the bier. They weren’t going to stay in the city. They couldn’t. It was not just because they needed to lie low. It was because it would hurt too much to live out the rest of one’s days in a mask. To a certain extent, as a public figure, Vetinari had already worn a mask. Didn’t he deserve to take it off at last and breathe?

 

“Where are you going?” asked Moist. “What will you do?”

“I’ve always thought highly of agriculture,” Vetinari said.

Part of Moist wanted to laugh and part of Moist wanted to cry.

“I can’t see you fucking off to the countryside,” he said, “sir,” he added quickly, to compensate for his language.

“Luckily, you won’t see it,” Vetinari said, “ _sir_. But that is what I intend to do. We are ‘fucking off’ to Fortille to be olive-growers. I have family in the region.”

“Family,” said Moist absently. He had never thought of Vetinari as having relatives, and he felt guilty about it. Of course he’d always known that the man was human, but only in the vague species sense. Moist had to force himself to accept that he was mortal, that he was aging, and that he probably had had parents once, and, what’s more, cousins. He was vaguely aware that Vetinari was speaking again.

“I do have relatives, sir. I wasn’t born out of the ocean like Astoria on the half-shell with seafoam in my hair.”

 

Moist’s mind spared itself the mortifying ordeal of picturing _that_ , because it latched onto something else.

“You can’t call me ‘sir,’” he said, horrified, “I’m not sir.”

“You _are_ going to be the Patrician, sir,” Drumknott reminded him.

“It’s as good as settled, sir,” Vetinari added. “Technically, you’d outrank me.”

“I will die if you call me ‘sir,’” Moist said firmly.

“Noted, sir,” said Vetinari, trying not to smile.

 

Drumknott looked at his pocket-imp and sighed.

“I’m afraid we must cut this short. We have to catch our transit.”

Vetinari nodded.

“I have already said what I wished to say.”

“Wait!” said Moist.

 

He hadn’t thought of what he was going to say now that he had their full attention, but luckily he had always been possessed of a mouth that thought quickly on its feet.

 

“You have to tell me where you’re going to be living, Mr. Drumknott!” he said, “I have to, er, mail you the pencils. I have to send you all the pencils, and pens, and sticks of sealing wax I’ve pickpocketed from you throughout the years.”

“I have always meant to return them,” Moist lied.

A beatific smile washed over Drumknott’s face.

“Oh, Mr. von Lipwig,” he said, “there’s no need for that! You may keep them. Consider them my housewarming, or rather, office-warming gift to you.”

Moist turned to Vetinari desperately.

“You will write to me, won’t you?”

Vetinari strode over to him and placed a warm, gentle hand on his shoulder. Moist looked up at him. Vetinari’s expression was kind, despite the underlying sternness that came with his face. It was paternal, Moist caught himself thinking. The lines at the corners of Vetinari’s eyes creased as he smiled an honest, open smile.

“I will not,” Vetinari said.

 

“I understand,” Moist said resignedly.

He half-expected them to leave then and there, but they seemed to be waiting for him to say something.

“Oh,” Moist said, “of course. Don’t keep yourselves from being where you need to be on my account.”

Vetinari shook him by the hand.

“It needs work, my friend, but you’ll get it soon enough. Don’t try to copy mine. You’ll get far further by being Moist von Lipwig than you will by trying to be Lord Vetinari.”

Moist nodded and tried again. He put on the most winsome smile in his arsenal of charm.

“It’s been such a pleasure meeting with you, I’m so sorry you have to leave.”

“There we go!” said Vetinari proudly.

“It’s been a pleasure as well,” said Drumknott, shaking Moist’s hand goodbye.

 

Moist felt a lump form in his throat as he watched Vetinari and Drumknott pick up their suitcases.

“Bye, sir!” said Vetinari, waving cheerfully.

“Bye, sir!” Drumknott chimed in.

The lump in his throat dissipated. He rolled his eyes and waved back.

They left, and for a moment, Moist was alone in the weird little upper room. That was it, then. Things were changing. He should contemplate something, he thought. But then Jocasta Wiggs arrived. She had changed out of her Dark Clerk digs into a neat suit better befitting a regular clerk, and she had put on a pair of glasses that were probably false. There were some stapled papers in her hand.

“The wake is tonight,” she said, “and you’ll be expected to be there. Then the funeral is tomorrow at dusk in the Assassins’ Guild Hall, but you should be there an hour earlier, at five. You’ll be seated in the third row. Then the conclave meets in the Rats’ Chamber at seven sharp, Octeday morning, but naturally, you’ll want to be there at five-thirty. Vile early, I know, but you have the option of staying overnight at the palace if you should so choose.”

“Thank you, Miss Wiggs,” he said. “Now, if you could escort me back out the secret passage, I have some business to attend to.”

“Right this way, sir,” she said.

 

* * *

 

Meanwhile, in a train headed to Alcázar, Fortille, a tall, clean-shaven older gentleman in a navy blue coat turned to the passenger seated next to him.

“I didn’t know you thought of me as your wife, Rufus. I can’t say I’d make a very good one.”

The other passenger, a stocky fellow in a floral shirt, simply flipped the page of his newspaper and said,

“I am _really_ going to relish getting to tell you to shut up.”


End file.
